Mildreds - Soho, London

When Eddie and I first arrived in London last year we purchased a book called Veggie & Organic London as a way to familiarize ourselves with vegetarian eating in London. I had read about Mildreds at the time but somehow just totally forgot about it, until recently. Eddie and I were going to be around Oxford Circus and needed a place to eat and Mildreds happens to be in the area. So, we finally tried it out and we are so very glad we did!

Our choices for the evening:

Me:
pan fried cherry tomato, halloumi and wilted spinach dressed with balsamic (₤5.25) - this was a great way to start our first visit to Mildreds! The thing that surprised me most about this dish was it's size - it was very large for a starter. I almost think it was too much food but I still loved it.

trio of mushroom stroganoff with cheddar mash(₤8) - this was the special main of the evening and I thought it was great. The sauce was very creamy and it had a ton of mushrooms. The cheddar mash was slightly dry but mixing it with the cream sauce helped solve that problem.

Eddie:
yellow lentil soup with coconut milk and homemade bread(₤4.50) - this was the soup of the day and it had a real kick to it that Eddie really liked. You could really taste the coconut milk and the soup had a very nice yellow color. Like me, he also thought the portion was a little large and was full before his main even arrived!

sweet potato, aubergine and carrot burger(₤7.40) - this was the burger of the day and it was very popular in the restaurant. Eddie liked the burger and thought it was way better than the one he usually gets at Eat and Two Veg (said to be "the best mock burger in London" by the book mentioned at the beginning of the post). He loved the consistency of the burger and the "perfectly toasted bun." The only thing he didn't care much for was the basil mayo but fortunately it came in a separate container.

Total for food, drinks and service: ₤36

Mildreds is very casual, has very friendly service, lots of food choices and is great value for money. Mildreds is also very popular! They don't take reservations and I had read online that it can get very crowded. We went around 6:00, when there were only a few other tables occupied. By the time we left the place was completely full.

We were very pleased with Mildreds and can't wait to go back!

Salzburg, Austria - October 14 through October 16, 2008

Salzburg, as seen from Hohensalzburg

After three days in Vienna we headed west to Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart (who by the way composed his first symphony near our old farmer's market in Pimlico, London) and setting to The Sound of Music. We spent two nights in Salzburg and it only added to our high opinion of Austria.

3+

1. The city is compact and very walkable. Our hotel was opposite the old town right on the bank of the Salzach River. We were able to easily walk to all of the attractions of Salzburg and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the city on foot. We did opt for a taxi to and from the train station though as it is quite a distance but other than that there is no need for motorized transport.
2. Quaint town and beautiful Alpine scenery. The "main" street, Getreidegasse, had many well known current stores that you would easily find in the UK or America, ie Zara. However, each of the stores had very old fashioned metal signs hanging outside, giving the street a very charming look. That charm, coupled with the Alps in the distance and changing foliage made Salzburg a delight to visit. We imagine that a layer of snow wouldn't hurt the appeal of the place at all!
3. Salzburg is very easy to get to from Vienna via a 3 hour train ride. It is a pretty train ride and the train we were on was clean, quiet and comfortable.
   

Hohensalzburg and Old Town

3-

1. As mentioned above, the train station is not in the city center. A cab or bus ride is pretty much a must unless you are travelling light or feeling energetic. The cab fare from the train station to the hotel was approximately €7.
2. The narrow streets of the old town can get very crowded with tourists and locals alike. Considering we were there at an off peak time we can't imagine what it would be like at the height of the summer and winter seasons!
   
3. There was a lot of construction/renovation going on while we were in town. While we realize this is necessary to maintain the city and all the sites, it is still slightly annoying to have so much of it going on while we were visiting. Dom, with scaffolding.

Hotel Sacher Salzburg - Salzburg, Austria

Hotel Sacher Salzburg

2 Nights (Tuesday, Wednesday)

Room Type: Standard Room

Price: €340 (room and tax)

Overall Grade: B

3+

1. Location. While not in the more touristy Old Town, the hotel is located on the Salzach River, between the Old and New Town. Because Salzburg is quite small, there is no need to be in the Old Town and the Hotel Sacher was in a nice location for enjoying all that Salzburg has to offer, Old and New.
2. Size and decor of room. Given that we were in the lowest level of room, the size was still quite large. There was plenty of room to walk around in and to leave our things strewn about, which tends to happen after a day of sightseeing. The hotel had recently been redone and it showed in the fabrics and furnishings. Everything was very nicely presented and well finished. We think this is the first room we have ever stayed in with a chandelier in it! (See photo below.) We especially appreciated the large safe built into one of the many closets. The size of the safe differed completely from the one we had in our Vienna hotel and we liked that it was built into the closet shelf, making it virtually impossible to remove. Some safes in hotel rooms are so small and just sit inside closets making it seem like you could just pick it up and take it. Not this one!
3. We loved walking into our room and finding a small plate with several different kinds of chocolates on it. The Sacher is known of course for the famous Sacher Torte so it was nice to get a little sample of their confectioneries in our room.
   

Standard Room, Hotel Sacher Salzburg

View from our room, Salzach River

3-

1. There was no free internet in the room and the price they charge to connect is absolutely hilarious. We called down to the front desk to get an access code, thinking maybe it was free, until the front desk told us they would charge us €14.99 for three hours! That is about how much we pay for internet at home for TWO MONTHS!! The thing is we only wanted the internet to check emails and three hours at that price was just way too excessive for us.
2. There was no breakfast included in the rate. We had an exceptional room rate because it was the off-season but it still would have been nice to have had bed and breakfast.
   
3. The shower head and door were set up very poorly in the bathroom. The shower head clipped to a vertical rail on the long side of the tub. This isn't usually a problem but the protecting door only covered one half of the tub and the powerful shower head, when turned on, kept wanting to spray water on the end of the tub without the door. Go figure. I guess we can just add it to our list of terrible shower experiences!
   

Vienna, Austria - October 11 through October 14, 2008

Tiled roof of Stephansdom, Vienna

In celebration of Annie's birthday we took a week off and headed to Austria. Our Austrian adventure began in Vienna, continued to Salzburg and then ended in Innsbruck. The trip turned out to be one of our favorite holidays in Europe and we would highly recommend any of the places we visited.

3+

1. Coffee & Sweets. Vienna is famous for its cafes and for good reason. After a day of sightseeing it is great to sit and relax with a coffee (or a melange for Annie!) and one of the many delicious desserts. More to come on the cakes/pastries in Austria in Annie's food post, but needless to say they are amazing.
2. Vienna is simply a beautiful city with highly decorated and grand buildings. Just wandering the streets admiring all the buildings is a pleasure in itself. There are also a number of museums and residences to visit. Stephandsom (St. Stephen's Cathedral) is one of the most popular sights with it's colored, tiled roof. Make sure to walk the entire way around the Cathedral to see the different themes of tiles. For a museum, we chose to visit The Belvedere to see the Gustav Klimt paintings and enjoy the gardens. Two other places we enjoyed visiting were The Hofburg Complex and the Neues Rathaus (City Hall). The windows of the Neues Rathaus were adorned with flower boxes, giving the Neo-Gothic building a very cheerful facade.
   
3. The people. While they may not be outwardly friendly they were always very helpful and accommodating of our terrible/non-existent German speaking ability. We found this to be true everywhere we went on our trip, not just in Vienna, and it was a definite plus.

Upper Belvedere, Vienna

Hofburg, Vienna

Neues Rathaus, Vienna

3-

1. The sights are somewhat expensive. While you can get the Vienna Card which gives discounts at sights across the city, the card doesn't seem to be much of a savings. Because the card only offers you discounts at sights (not free entry) you need to visit a large number of sights to make up the €18.50 cost. The only thing we paid entry for was the Belvedere (Upper and Lower) and that alone was €25 for the both of us.
   
2. In Rome there are the gladiators outside the Coliseum, harassing you for pictures. The Viennese equivalent are the people dressed like Mozart stationed at every tourist or semi-touristy site. While they don't hassle you quite as much as the gladiators in Rome, they are a nuisance.
   
3. There are many obstacles to contend with when crossing the street: cars in the normal car lanes, cyclists in the bicycle lanes and trams in the tram lanes. Once, we were given the green man to cross a large road and we came very, very, very close to getting run over by a tram coming around a bend. Luckily Eddie looked over in time for us to hurl ourselves out of the way! We don't know if the trams don't have to stop at red lights like the cars but this one sure didn't! We were forever paranoid about crossing any streets after that incident.
   

Hollmann Beletage - Vienna, Austria

Hollmann Beletage

3 Nights (Saturday, Sunday and Monday)

Room Type: Residenz L

Price: €520 (room, tax and breakfast)

Overall Grade: B

3+

1. The hotel is well located in the Innere Stadt with a very short walk through narrow lanes to Stephansdom. We were able to walk to all the major sites (Belvedere, The Hofburg Complex, etc.) in Vienna easily from the hotel. We took the U-Bahn only once, to catch our train to Salzburg from Westbahnhof. Even getting to the hotel from the airport was super convenient, taking the Vienna Airport Lines bus to Schwedenplatz, a short walk away.
   
2. Room size & bathroom. We stayed in a Residenz L and it was a very large room with a massive bathroom. The room had a small sitting area, a desk and plenty of room to walk around in even with our suitcase out. The bathroom was very modern with a large, two person stand alone tub and a separate walk in shower.
3. The price of the room included useful extras such as wifi, breakfast and daily fresh fruit plates and chocolates in the room. The breakfast staff were super friendly and there was a lot of choice for food and drinks.
   

3-

1. The bed was one of those annoying European beds where two singles are pushed together. What was confusing to us was the fact that the bed frame was a queen bed frame with two single mattresses placed into it, making it impossible to split the bed apart...unless you put one of the mattresses on the floor! It just seemed very pointless and we would have preferred to have had the correct size mattress in the bed frame.
2. While there was a safe in the room, it was rather small and would not accommodate our laptop. We could fit our passports and travel documentation in but had to find other places for our laptop and the valuable souvenirs we purchased.
   
3. Lack of natural light. We had a room attached to the internal courtyard which didn't have much of a view and gave very little natural light. This wasn't a huge issue as we didn't spend much time during the day in our room but it would have been nice in the mornings.